


i've just seen a face

by fiveaces



Series: come and go with me [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Homophobic Language, M/M, teddy boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 12:53:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17704631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveaces/pseuds/fiveaces
Summary: It's late '50s, Birmingham, and Tommy meets Alfie.





	i've just seen a face

**Author's Note:**

> It's a teddy boys au because why not. Views of sexuality/gender are compliant with the time period, so it's gonna be bad :( Also, there's leather.
> 
> I'll have more stuff in this era throughout whenever an idea pops into my head. Also, thanks to all the support from the lovely people over at the Tommy/Alfie discord server! I wouldn't be doing this without your encouragement!
> 
> Title comes from "I've Just Seen a Face" by The Beatles
> 
> A DA is a type of hairstyle the teddy boys/greasers used to wear back in time. It’s short for Duck Tail since it looked like that!

He arrives on an overcast April afternoon, the shoulders of his black leather jacket dewy with the mist that settles in on the city during these drab, dreary times. He’s got a smile that can stop hearts and eyes that crinkle in the corners when they meet Tommy’s.

He is new, Tommy’s brain supplies, to Birmingham. Or he could just be passing by. Either way, Tommy can’t help himself from staring. 

“Hullo,” the man says, and steps further into the store, letting go of the door so the bell above it jangles again. There’s rows and rows of records that separate them, most of them new, some of them old. All of them having been looked through by wandering hands at least once. “I’m here about a record.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Tommy blurts out, and cringes internally at the cliché. He sounds like a black and white heroine from the classics, voice pitched high and breathy. He clears his throat, schools himself into a bland look. “What’re you looking for?”

The man keeps on wandering down the aisle, his hands running across the ridges of the covers carelessly, and Tommy bristles. Far too many times he’s seen dented corners and edges on the covers because of people like him, and he can’t help himself when he snaps.

“Don’t touch the covers unless you’re looking at them.”

The man pauses, halfway to where Tommy’s stood behind the counter, cash register by his elbow, and raises an eyebrow. There’s a gap in it, Tommy notices. A scar, maybe, right after the arch, and it gives the man an air of calculated recklessness. His lips are soft, shiny when he licks at them.

Tommy hesitates. “Please.”

“Please what?” The man tilts his head. A piece of hair springs from his DA and falls just above that arched brow. The man’s eyes, well as much as Tommy can see them from here, are blue and grey, glinting in a way that makes his toes curl. “Please what, Mr…?”

The man trails off, eyebrow still arched, the little curl above it still there. He looks— _God_ , Tommy doesn’t know what he looks like except he looks _good_. Something dark skips down his spine when the man moves closer, the heels of his boots clicking on the tiles Tommy’d just polished this morning. 

He leans over, then, fingers curled over the edge of the counter and head still tilted when he reads the name tag pinned on Tommy’s white shirt. His eyes squint, a moue of a pout forming on those full lips. “Mr. Shelby, is it? Thomas Shelby.”

There’s walls and walls of shelves full of records that squeeze Tommy’s own tiny register right at the back of the store. There’s a blind spot, he knows, right at the left hand edge of the counter, and he could pull this man who he doesn’t know the name of and kiss him right then and there. 

But he doesn’t, because he _can’t_. Who knows what type of person this man is. If he even likes guys just as much as girls, and that’s the whole fucking point of Tommy being in this record store isn’t it? So he can save up enough money to fuck off to Paris where there are people like him, who may not exactly dress like him, but _get_ him the way Arthur and John, who’ve got steady girlfriends and a penchant to throw words like _poofter_ and _queer_ and _fag_ around like they don’t stab at Tommy’s heart every second of every day, don’t. And the thing is, the absolutely mind boggling thing is, they don’t even _know_ Tommy likes men. No one does, except Ada, who’s kept her mouth shut so far after she’d caught him necking with Richie from two doors up where they live all because she couldn’t go to the library by herself. 

“Thomas? Thomas Shelby?” he hears again, and the man’s accent is distinctly London, mixed in with another, more foreign one. “That your name?”

“Of course it’s my fucking name, I’m wearing it aren’t I?” Tommy snaps irritably, scowling when the man just stares at him with those stupid eyes. He’s angry at the sudden realisation that he’s working in this little record store and dealing with irritating customers like the one in front of him, no matter how handsome they might be, solely to go off to a foreign place and get laid with little to no fear. 

_Fucking hell._

“Sorry,” he says, not at all apologetic. But it’s the polite thing to do with the store owner, Mrs. Whitehall, lurking somewhere deep in the heart of the shop. He fishes around for an excuse and manages to come up with one that hits the nail too close to the head. “I’m just a little bit tense.”

The man tilts his head, a smile playing in the corners of his lips. “You don’t say. I’m Alfie, by the way. Alfie Solomons.”

“Mr. Solomons,” Tommy says, uncomfortable with the formality. He’s used to slinging around curse words and slurs, slouched in his leather clothes and chain smoking a pack of cigs. This— wearing a button up and a pair of slacks and feeling too much like his deadbeat excuse of a father isn’t exactly what he’d envisioned what working in a record store would be like, but he supposes he’ll have to adjust to it, no matter how bare and vulnerable he feels without his jacket. At least he gets to keep the DA. 

“Alfie,” Alfie says, and he grins, wide mouthed and pretty. “Call me Alfie.”

Tommy blinks, and shrugs a shoulder. “What do you want then, Alfie? What type of record, like.”

Alfie leans in further, like he’s going to tell Tommy a secret. “To be completely honest, I just wanted to meet someone.”

“In a record store?”

“What better way, eh?” Alfie says, still smiling. “If polite small talk deters out, we can talk about music and show each other our preferences and then who knows? Next thing we’re best buddies, mucking around near the chippy, skipping in the park, having little get-togethers and lay-ins—friendship, Thomas, I’m looking for a friend.”

“Well you won’t find any here,” Tommy says, and frowns when Alfie’s smile turns into something darker, more amused. “Now if you’d excuse me, I’m busy.”

With that, Tommy leaves him hanging by the counter, hurrying over to the door that leads to the back of the store, hidden away from customers. A new shipment of records is there, Buddy Holly, and Tommy sets to work unpacking them, pushing out all thoughts of Alfie Solomons from his mind.

When he emerges from the back with a stack of records balanced carefully in his arms, Alfie is long gone.


End file.
